


Thousand

by karcathy



Category: Homestuck
Genre: M/M, dumb, this prompt was really hard sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-24
Updated: 2013-01-24
Packaged: 2017-11-26 17:33:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/652726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/karcathy/pseuds/karcathy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Your name is John Egbert, and you wonder whether love has a number.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Thousand

 

 

Dave gives you a funny look when you ask him. By a funny look, you suppose you mean he looks at you like you’re an idiot. An idiot who’s asking about love and numbers at four in the morning.

“Well,” you say, rolling onto your side and propping yourself up on your elbow, “You know how they say a picture is worth a thousand words?”

“Yes?” he replies, dropping onto his back and staring at the ceiling.

“Do you think there’s something like that for love?”

“What, like love is worth a million words?” he asks, frowning slightly as he tries to unravel your thought process.

“Maybe love is only worth one word,” you say, chewing your lip thoughtfully, “Or maybe it’s worth a thousand of something else.”  
“A thousand what?”

You roll back onto your back as you think about it.

“What if it’s just worth a thousand times everything?”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“No, think about it!” you say, sitting up excitedly, “Love makes everything a thousand times more valuable! You see?”

“So... If you’ve got love, everything’s worth a thousand times more?”

You think about it for a moment.

“Not really. I don’t know. Maybe.”  
“I think you need to sleep,” he says, turning over to look at you.

You scoot over close to him, and stare into his eyes – at least, as well as you can in the dark and without your glasses.

“No, this is important,” you say earnestly, searching for the answer in his eyes, thinking perhaps it might be hidden inside Dave.

You run over what you just thought and realise you probably do need to sleep.

“Maybe love makes you worth a thousand times as much,” he suggests.

“No, that’s not right,” you say, shaking your head.

“Or maybe you should stop trying to quantify love and go to sleep.”

You sigh. He smiles, and ruffles your hair.

“Sorry,” you say.

“Shh.”

You smile again as he leans in and kisses you, then slips his arms around you and holds you against his chest. You rest your head on his chest, and stare into the darkness, still contemplating your problem.

“You’re still thinking about it, aren’t you?” he whispers, as if he can read your mind.

“Yeah,” you reply, “I just...”

“Don’t worry,” he says, stroking your hair, “Just... Okay, look at it this way. Love doesn’t have a value, it can’t be given a number. But maybe, if you’re in love, that love makes everything a thousand times better, or perhaps just the person you’re in love with, but anyway, that’s not the point, it’s just that... it’s all a matter of perception.”

You run that through your head a couple of times.

“So... to you, I’d be worth a thousand of anything else?” you say, scrunching up your face thoughtfully.

“And then some,” he says, kissing the top of your head.

You think about that for a bit, then smile.

“You’re a thousand to me, too,” you say, sleepily kissing his neck.

He laughs.

“You’re _my_ thousand,” he tells you, and you can hear him trying not to laugh.

“That should be the new ‘I love you’.”

You think he tries to agree with you, but he’s laughing too much to say anything.

 

You fall asleep like that, and your last conscious thought is that a thousand seems like a lot more when you’re talking about love. It might as well be infinite.  


End file.
